


Lover, Hey, Fuck You

by dustyfluorescent



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Background Relationships, Enemies to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, One-sided Arthur/Leon, Past Gwaine/Merlin - Freeform, Secret Relationship, flatmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:23:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1844278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustyfluorescent/pseuds/dustyfluorescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Arthur are moving in with Gwen and Elyan, and for legal reasons they have to pretend they’re a couple. The two have never met but Gwen assures them they will get along. The word ‘love’ is definitely mentioned. </p><p>From the moment they set eyes on each other, Merlin and Arthur definitely do not get along. Until, of course, they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lover, Hey, Fuck You

**Author's Note:**

> In Glasgow, a landlord should have a HMO license for a property when at least three people live there, said people belong to three or more families, and share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. Couples are considered members of the same family. Apparently the rules are slightly different elsewhere in the UK (I didn’t look into it much because that’s just too confusing) so we’ll just assume this story takes place in Glasgow. 
> 
> Title from Love Is A DJ by Pink, as heard in the 2004 film Mean Girls. 
> 
> Warnings for Mean Girls references, excessive swearing (this fic is a student AU that I wrote so I guess this is pretty much a given) and emotions.

“I hate him,” Merlin half-growls, half-sobs into his pint as Gwen rubs comforting circles into his back. “I hate him. He’s a cheating, no-good pile of shit who cheats. I really don’t get how I’m the one who’s getting thrown out of the flat.”

The music is too loud and the pub is too full of people and the tabletop is sticky with spilled drinks and who knows what else, but Merlin thuds his forehead against the wood anyway if only to remind himself of the fact that he’s actually living through this string of events. That for the first time since he was sixteen he’s suddenly single because apparently fidelity is too much to ask from a bloke who thinks with his cock like Gwaine does. And really, he should have seen it coming, should have known better, but the truth is he’d been blinded by love or in denial or something, and here he is now. Merlin groans again, this time with a bit more gusto, just in case his friends aren’t paying enough attention to his current predicament.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Gwen says, and bites her lip. “Well, not okay as such, but he is a dick, and now you’re done with him and you will never ever have to take shit from him ever again.”

Gwen has a point. Their relationship had been a long time dying, only kept alive by Merlin’s stubbornness and Gwaine’s fondness for Merlin’s backside and its many uses, and maybe the fact that it was familiar and comfortable and they’d been together for so long that ending it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Until, of course, it wasn’t anymore.

“I don’t have anywhere to live though,” Merlin mutters and downs the rest of his pint. It’s only his third one so he’s not nearly drunk enough to be coping with his new relationship status, gone from _we’ve been dating for four years we live together I’m in love with him and I think he’s the one because I’m in denial about a lot of things_ to _I have seen the light and I am apparently not good enough for him to keep it in his pants and as a result currently have nowhere to live_. “He cheats on me in my own bed, gets caught, and throws me out of the house? Makes fuck-all sense.”

“Wanker,” Gwen says solemnly, carding her fingers through Merlin’s hair. “Honest to God, good old-fashioned wanker.”

“God, I love him.”

“It’s because you’re an idiot,” Gwen says gently. “This too shall pass. Besides, we’ll have a spare bedroom in our flat starting from next month, so you can move in with us. You can have the sofa until then.”

Merlin lifts his head off the table and looks at Lance with his best sad dumped puppy-dog eyes until he sighs and goes to get them more alcohol. Then he turns to look at Gwen again. “I thought Morgana’s brother was moving in?”

“Yeah, but Leon’s moving out too, so there’s one extra room still going.”

“Sure that’s okay?”

“Of course. There’s no HMO license, though, so you’re going to have to pretend you’re dating Arthur.”

“Morgana’s brother Arthur, the one who’s an utter dick?”

“He’s not that bad.”

“That’s not how Morgs tells it.”

“She loves him, really. And you will too, I promise.”

Gwen sounds a little bit too keen to convince him, but Merlin isn’t really in any position to look the gift horse in the mouth right now so he sighs and shrugs and thinks to himself, how bad could it be.

*

Very bad, as it turns out.

The flat is perfectly nice. Gwen is Merlin’s best mate so it’s not like living with her is any kind of hardship for him. He likes Elyan, too, and living with siblings is not half as irritating as you’d expect when said siblings didn’t actually grow up together and only found out about each other in a history seminar two years ago. Merlin sleeps on the sofa for two weeks and, when Leon moves out, moves his shit to Leon’s old room, which is a very nice room indeed. They all have a couple of beers to celebrate. He signs the paper stating he and Arthur are a couple without ever having met the guy, and feels strangely giddy about that. It feels like punching Gwaine in the face, somehow. God, he wishes he’d punched Gwaine in the face before moving out. 

All in all, the new living arrangement works fine and gives Merlin absolutely nothing to complain about, and then Arthur moves in a week later.

The moment the two of them set eyes on each other it’s clear that they’re probably not going to be exchanging friendship bracelets anytime soon.

“Are people actually supposed to buy that this unsightly twink is my boyfriend?” is the first thing Merlin ever hears Arthur say, and things only go downhill from there.

Merlin’s had a long day and his last boyfriend was a huge dick so there is no way he is going to take shit from his new pretend-boyfriend before so much as a hello, so he tries to punch Arthur except that Merlin’s not much of a puncher whereas Arthur is apparently really into martial arts which, okay, Merlin had known, but had also forgotten about because the huge turd of crap posing as a human being currently invading his kitchen has approximately not a fucking thing in common with the glorious sharp beautiful lovely funny amazing _I swear you will love him, Merlin_ younger brother of Morgana’s that he’d heard so much about. So that’s how they end up with Merlin sprawled on the kitchen floor with a bloody nose (which, in fairness, he got from the kitchen counter and not from Arthur) and Arthur gasping for air, holding onto his crotch like that’s somehow going to help (and that one was definitely Merlin’s doing).

Gwen stands in the doorway with her shoes on and her coat dripping water on the carpet, a Tesco carrier bag in each hand, looking like she doesn’t really know how to react to this, and Elyan is standing behind her, howling with laughter. 

“I can’t believe this,” he gasps when he gets the chance to breathe. “Look at them two getting along like you said they would. It’s glorious.”

“This is my life now,” Gwen says in a flat tone. “I can’t believe this is my life.”

Merlin has to concur. It’s better than being homeless, he tells himself, and it’s better than living with Gwaine, but he’s not sure if he quite believes either.

“Nice to meet you too, babe,” he says through his bloodied nose, and Arthur flips him two fingers in response. 

*

Arthur _likes_ Leon. Arthur likes Leon a lot, a bit too much maybe, and okay, maybe it’s not a good idea to move in with the bloke you have a weird crush on because things could turn ugly and fast, but Morgana needs someone to move into her old room and there are HMO issues so he’d have to sign a paper stating he and Leon are together, and maybe he’s stupid but he kind of likes the idea, as well as the possibility that something might come out of it because apparently he thinks his life is a rom com. Who even knows. 

The bottom line is that Leon’s a good guy, and Arthur likes him. If something else happens between them, that’s cool (Arthur pretends he doesn’t care). So when Morgana calls him, _you were looking for a flat near the campus, right?_ he says okay like it isn’t rocking his world, like he doesn’t feel like he’s in the middle of some sordid daydream. When he packs his things at the old flat, he listens to his playlist of emotions and thinks about how running into a sleep-rumpled Leon wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxers making coffee in the kitchen might soon be a daily occurrence in his life, and he admits that this could end in tears but he doesn’t care, and he’s giddy with joy and anticipation.

And then Morgana announces that she and Leon are together, have been for some time, that he’s moving in with her and ergo moving out of Gwen and Elyan’s place, and instead some random bloke from Gwen’s course is moving in with them and hopefully that’s okay with Arthur? and Arthur kicks the wall and clutches the phone in his hand hard enough to hurt and tries not to sound like he’s crying when he says yeah, whatever, and waits until he’s hung up to let his world fall to pieces.

Gwen says he’ll love Merlin. She says good things about him and Arthur isn’t listening, she says good things and Arthur hates Merlin more every time Gwen talks about him. When he signs the paper which was supposed to have Leon’s name on it, it feels like something in him is breaking and it’s ridiculous because it was never anything but a pathetic fantasy but it hurts anyway. By the time he actually meets Merlin, Arthur is a barely-contained ball of misery and irritation and rage, and Merlin smirks at him like he knows something Arthur doesn’t, and Arthur just can’t fucking take it anymore.

It all goes downhill from there.

*

Their first meeting kind of sets the tone for their continuing coexistence. There’s no more actual physical violence - not enough to mention, anyway - mainly just yelling and sniping as well as a fair amount of passive-aggressive behaviour to spice things up. They use each other’s cutlery on purpose and leave it unwashed, drink each other’s beer and use up the last of the milk, and on one memorable occasion Arthur pours Merlin’s shampoo down the sink and leaves behind a polite Post-It note with a reminder to buy more. To get back at him, Merlin waits until Arthur’s gone home for the weekend, has a wank in Arthur’s bed, and leaves behind a polite Post-It note notifying him of the event, as well as the fact that the sheets have not been changed. As a result, Arthur steals Merlin’s underwear. Merlin draws a penis on Arthur’s Transformers poster. Arthur downloads bear porn on Merlin’s computer. Merlin cuts nipple holes into Arthur’s second favourite t-shirt, Mean Girls style (he will deny until his dying day that that’s where he got the idea even though everyone knows what his favourite movie is). 

It’s their war, but there is no way of avoiding it anywhere in the house. Gwen is starting to regret her life choices, and Elyan is not laughing anymore. Two months after Arthur moved in, the two of them (and Lance, who really doesn’t feel as comfortable as he used to when visiting his girlfriend so he really feels like this is his problem, too) sit down to discuss a possible intervention. It’s getting out of hand, really, like they’re trying to prove something to someone, like they need to showcase their hatred for each other constantly just to make sure that everybody knows they can’t stand each other, just to -

Oh.

That’s pretty much how Gwen, Elyan and Lancelot catch up on the situation. Because if there is something that can be said about Merlin and Arthur, it’s that neither of them is known to do things by halves, and neither of them likes being proved wrong.

*

The actual real turning point in their relationship happens a week after Arthur moves in. Arthur starts the morning by pouring Merlin’s milk in his coffee and then downing the rest because he’s in a pissy mood and he wants to take it out on somebody, and Merlin’s right there. He only has one completely useless seminar all day so he decides to skip it and stay in watching porn and playing video games instead. At one point, he crawls out of his man-cave to cook a frozen pizza (because he is pathetic). He takes one of Merlin’s plates just to be annoying, and leaves it outside Merlin’s door when he’s done with it because he is a little bitch and since he’s feeling a bit self-loathing he might as well have a proper reason for it.

He’s sitting in his room, wallowing in misery, playing GTA V and drinking beer because fuck you, it’s Friday and he’s sad, when someone knocks on his door.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, and when Arthur doesn’t answer, he knocks again. “Can I come in?”

Arthur ignores him.

“You know what, I don’t give a fuck, “ Merlin says. “I’m coming in.”

The door isn’t locked because it doesn’t lock, and Arthur has never cared about that until now. Merlin comes in, and Arthur doesn’t turn to look at him.

“What the fuck?” he snaps, when Merlin just kind of stands there like he’s waiting for something, not saying anything. When Merlin doesn’t answer, Arthur sighs and pauses his game. He turns to look at Merlin and raises an eyebrow.

“I know we got off on the wrong foot,” Merlin says, looking pissed off and a bit awkward, “but I’m fucking done with this and we need to sort ourselves out. Talk, or whatever.”

“Yeah?” Arthur scoffs. “Well grab a fucking beer, then, and we’ll have our therapy session.”

He doesn’t know how he could possibly manage to sound any more sarcastic, but Merlin either doesn’t catch it or elects to ignore it because he actually takes a beer and sits down on the edge of Arthur’s unmade bed. Arthur rolls his eyes but then figures they might as well get this over with, because they never had an actual civil conversation after Arthur called Merlin an unsightly twink and Merlin kneed Arthur in the bollocks, and maybe some apologies are in order. Arthur’s not actually a bad person. He’s just emotionally stunted, and tends to project his negative feelings on other people.

“What’s going on?” Merlin asks, and he sounds like the shrink Arthur used to see back when the psychologist’s appointment his dad decided he would need as a follow-up to his big gay reveal actually ended up uncovering some real issues. Arthur rolls his eyes and takes a swig of his beer.

“Do try to sound more condescending,” he says. “It brings up such fond memories.”

“Sorry,” Merlin says. “But this is fucked up. I get that you don’t like me, and I know I’m easy to rile up, but this is getting really fucking annoying and I’d rather just get on with my life.”

“I like you fine,” Arthur says, because what else is he supposed to say.

“You’ve a funny way of showing it.”

Arthur laughs. He looks at Merlin lounging on his bed, frowning all serious-like, long limbs and sharp cheekbones and hair curling at the temples. He drinks beer and swallows and bites his lip, and Arthur calmly wonders why he never looked at Merlin before, really _looked_. Because actually there is nothing unsightly about him. Even his ridiculous ears just make him look like a really beautiful person instead of some ethereal sex god, and okay, Arthur can’t be thinking this, and where the fuck did it come from.

Maybe it’s because he was so caught up on Leon. That he never looked. Maybe he was caught up on himself. Maybe it’s because Merlin was so different from Leon, and because the others wanted Arthur to like him so he had to fight it. Obviously.

“You know,” Arthur says to the beer stain on the carpet, “if this was a movie I’d kiss you.”

Merlin laughs. “What?”

Arthur plays with the label on his beer, refusing to look up. His face is heating up and he might have accidentally said something slightly stupid in his hurry to say words before thinking what they imply, and he doesn’t really want to deal with the consequences.

“Just saying. Or in a porno, like. _You’ve a funny way of showing it._ What’s a man to do.”

God, Arthur, just shut up. 

“Would it be so bad if you did? I mean, talking is overrated anyway.”

At that, Arthur looks up at Merlin, who is definitely blushing. The tips of his ears are bright red and he’s staring at the green bottle in his hand, looking a bit lost and a bit shaky.

“Are you into me, Merlin?” Arthur asks, and is surprised to realise that he actually cares about the answer.

“I dunno,” Merlin says, still avoiding Arthur’s gaze. “I mean, might as well. I don’t see this conversation going anywhere, and if everything goes to shit it’s not like there’s a friendship to ruin or anything.”

Arthur stares at Merlin until he looks up and meets his eyes. Arthur raises his eyebrows and Merlin shrugs. 

“It’s true,” Merlin says and bites his lip again, and maybe Arthur’s not been paying attention to Merlin on purpose or then he’s going blind because Merlin is damn adorable and Arthur can’t believe it’s taken him this long to realise it.

“That’s flawless logic, that is,” Arthur says and climbs to sit on the bed next to Merlin, and then they’re kissing and it’s awesome, and for a bit Arthur doesn’t even remember who the fuck Leon even is.

When he does remember, he’s straddling Merlin, kissing his neck, his hands tangled in his hair, and Merlin is making delicious noises that are making Arthur’s jeans feel a tad too snug. Arthur freezes, and Merlin grunts, and suddenly Arthur’s not in the mood at all, he’s just sad and a bit horrified, and also way too tired to make a scene, so he just kind of slumps down and falls to lie down next to Merlin.

“Fuck,” he says, staring at Merlin’s swollen lips and mussed-up hair.

“Yep,” Merlin says, staring back at him.

“What the hell.”

“Same.”

“I don’t -”

“Yeah.”

“We should probably -”

“Talk first. Yeah.”

“I mean, you’re hot, and okay, but I’m not sure if - “

“I get it.”

“Later, though?”

Merlin closes his eyes and swallows. “Definitely.”

“Wanna just. Hang out?”

Merlin nods, strokes Arthur’s cheek, gives him a quick kiss, and then rolls off the bed and picks up their discarded beers, taking a hearty swig off one and handing Arthur the other. Arthur straightens his t-shirt and runs his hand through his hair and smiles at Merlin, who’s trying to discreetly adjust himself in his jeans.

“GTA?” Arthur asks, offering Merlin the second controller, and Merlin takes it with a grateful grin.

*

Arthur ends up sucking Merlin off in the kitchen before they actually get to the talking about it part. The conversation takes place immediately after Merlin comes in Arthur’s mouth. Arthur gets up to spit in the sink and Merlin slides down to sit on the floor with a groan.

“They can never know about this,” Merlin says when Arthur drags him back up and pulls him in for a kiss. 

“Wha?” Arthur says. He’s a bit dazed, and his boner is distracting him from the conversation.

“Elyan and Gwen. We can’t tell them. If they find out they were right they’re gonna be unbearable.”

Arthur grins against Merlin’s mouth because it’s true. “I have an idea,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Come to my room and help me get off and maybe I’ll tell you.”

“Fine,” Merlin says. “Just this once. And it better be a good idea, too.”

“Oh, it’s the best.”

The idea is pretty good. They will keep pretending they can’t stand each other, complete with irritating roommate behaviour and a prank-off, and they’ll sneak around to have sex and stuff. Stuff like spending time together, getting to know each other. Going to see a movie together, whatever. It’s not like they’re dating. They’re just friends. Who are attracted to each other, and occasionally make out and sleep together, apparently. It’ll be great.

Arthur can’t wait.

“The price of using my cutlery and leaving it unwashed is one blowjob,” Merlin says.

“Liked it, then?” Arthur says with a smirk and licks Merlin’s ear.

“Fuck, yes.”

They watch Mean Girls because Arthur’s never seen it and Merlin refuses to associate with people who haven’t seen Mean Girls, and it’s not like they cuddle per se, it’s just that the bed’s not really big enough for two. And the room’s a bit cold. Whatever.

Arthur tells Merlin he thinks Mean Girls is ridiculous, although he actually kind of likes it. Merlin grins and kisses him, because he knows.


End file.
